Walking Away
by Blaze6
Summary: The numbness was new. Follow-up to "Waning"


Title: Walking Away  
  
Author: Blaze  
  
Rating/Spoilers: PG, and no spoilers except for Hunger Artist and "Waning."  
  
Summary: The numbness was new.  
  
Disclaimer: If I owned CSI, Grissom wouldn't have had to send Sara a plant. And he did, so obviously, Sara, Grissom, and the rest of their posse aren't mine. I don't own cornflakes or oatmeal either.  
  
Author's Notes: I wasn't even going to write this story, but I did. Uh, this won't make a lot of sense if you haven't read Waning, but it's not required. Basically, Sara left Grissom. End of story. Thanks to the people who paid attention…and to all of those who reviewed Waning… I hope you're as kind to this one as you were to it. Enjoy!  
  
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She'd left her book in the apartment.  
  
A small surge of anger flowed up and cut through her artificially happy wall, releasing itself on an innocent noodle. Lifting her fork, she glared at it before dropping it into her mouth and pulverizing it. Good one, Sara, she thought. Destroy the evidence.  
  
He'd love that, his prize pupil doing one of the only things she'd swore to him she'd never do. She could see the raised eyebrow now, the disapproving look, those crystal blue eyes…  
  
Shaking her head, she rid herself of the image, stabbing another noodle, reached for her book as she chewed, felt nothing but the cool, smooth surface of the table.  
  
The book was in her apartment.  
  
He was in her apartment, too.  
  
Sara frowned. No thinking about him during lunch, she told herself. Any other time is just fine, but not during lunch.  
  
He was probably reading her book.  
  
She hated it when other people read her books before she was finished. "What?" he'd signed one day as she shooed him away from the paperback she'd just bought. "Worried about eye tracks?"  
  
No thinking about Grissom during lunch.  
  
She wondered how he was doing, if he'd left the apartment recently. How he was dealing with the silence now that she wasn't there to help.  
  
He's Grissom, he doesn't need anyone, doesn't need me. Especially me right now.  
  
No thinking about Grissom during lunch! No thinking about leaving him or loving him or anything related to him.  
  
Okay…let's be quiet then…  
  
Silence was never something she was very good at. In third grade, when Mrs. Bailey made the class do a five-minute silent time-out, she'd nibbled her lip nearly raw trying to fight back the bubbles of nervous laughter that were desperate to break the silence.  
  
Incessant talking had gotten her through the last two months of Sara-and- Grissom. Getting it all out before she went home irritated her coworkers and relieved the pressure of silence at the apartment.  
  
Grissom hated to be useless, she hated absolute silence. Somehow they had both been trapped in their own versions of hell. She'd tried to adapt, tried the best she could, but like any normal person, there was a limit to her patience and strength and level of habituation. And she responded the only way she knew how, by pulling away.  
  
She hated herself for leaving him.  
  
No thinking about Grissom during lunch, remember?  
  
Oh, hell, it was only a promise. She'd broken plenty in the last week. Go ahead, think about him, she told herself. I dare you.  
  
Double dare you.  
  
Why did she stop wanting whatever she had forbidden herself to have once she had it? She couldn't even think about him now. No fair.  
  
She reached for the book again.  
  
Damn, the book was in the apartment. He was in the apartment. He was in the apartment reading her book.  
  
It was strange, actually. She had dumped and had been dumped a dozen times, been furious and regretful and guilty and sad…on one occasion, she had been ecstatic.  
  
The numbness was new.  
  
She wasn't broken-hearted, wasn't crying herself to sleep. Wasn't angry, wasn't hurt, wasn't waking up thinking, "It was a mistake." Wasn't happy either. Something was missing.  
  
Oh, right, I'm numb.  
  
What would he think? He'd never seen her numb. Crying, yes. So damn angry she nearly punched a guy, yes. Frustrated, yes. Happy, yes. Numb…she shook her head. Nope, never seen her numb.  
  
Numb was the world fuzzy around the edges, days passing by without any change, all food tasting like oatmeal and cornflakes. Numb was fading out in the middle of analysing evidence, plodding through the day, putting on her Tough Girl face as a shield. Numb was feeling the loss and feeling relieved, dying inside and blocking it out by pretending she didn't care.  
  
Numb was fake, numb was a lie.  
  
Grissom hated liars. Did he hate her?  
  
Only one way to find out…  
  
Truth was, she'd only left because she didn't know what else to do. She couldn't go on living in silence, couldn't stay pretending it didn't bother her. What the hell was she supposed to do when love wasn't enough?  
  
She hated herself for leaving. 


End file.
